I’ve often wondered where the word “meantime” came from. It just seems too fitting. St. Augustine of Hippo asked “What, then, is time?” Rhetoric. He was smart; he had to know the answer. Time is mean. Even I’ve always known that, even as a child. Time is a snarky, manipulative, rule-skirting kleptomaniac, the kind that sings “na na-na na na” at you from a great distance away while you’re down on the ground with a skinned knee and a bike or something on top of you.
An exhaustive search during the last fifteen minutes has got me nowhere much toward the etymology of this word, leaving me to conclude simply that it is coined in reference to time’s character, its attitude. Clearly this perspective on the nature of time is officially recognized fact and if you disagree with it, you’re wrong.
But I’m selling you short. How could you disagree? Who finds time congenial? It’s always either too fast or too slow—reliable only in being exactly what you find least comforting or convenient. Time accords no pats on the head for having learned your moral lesson from suffering or defeat. Time takes the din of success, the uproar of joy, and throws it back at you in the following silence as taunting empty echoes. And I can tell you from nearly a quarter-century of experience that time has never healed a wound of mine. The closest it has come is giving me a kick in the shin that makes me temporarily forget the kick in the head it gave me earlier. Most of the time, the wound just throbs until I consider it a part of life.
If time healed wounds, we wouldn’t use such occasions to mark the passage of time.
“No, honey, it was in ninety-two, because it was before your cataract surgery, remember?”
“I reconciled with my mom the very same morning that they realized my cancer was in remission.”
“After I got my nose job, everything changed.”
I’ve got nothing good to say about time. Everything it procures for us, it hands over with a smirk, knowing that it would have been much better if we’d had it earlier. It’s like the annoying uncle who never fails to give you a birthday present, but also never forgets to slip a whoopee cushion under you as you sit down to open it. The best I can do is take the gift it brings, grimly smile at his smug idiocy, and console myself with writing invectives that everyone will agree with.
He knows nobody likes him.
He hates New Year’s Eve as much as you do. It marks one less year he gets to make jokes at your expense.
The best thing you can do against Time is act like you’re going to live forever, and then die.
(first published on 8.2.07, 11.57am)
1 comment:
Sorry to be the one- I disagree! Time isn't mean- it's what gives meaning to our lives. We can't experience anything in this universe outside of time. We only are who we are at any particular point in time- then we change. But that's a good thing- it makes each moment unique, never to be repeated.
But time isn't simple- i can't decide if this it going too fast or taking too long- but at least it is consistent. every day does end and a new one comes after it. So even on my worst days, I can count on time.
And on my best days, i know i'll never get this time back. So here in the meantime, i'll embrace it and enjoy it and know that it will all be over in a heartbeat.
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